


those who walk in the light

by lostamongstars



Category: Legend Series - Marie Lu, 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Biological Warfare, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Enemies to Lovers, Espionage, Gen, I'm gonna die and I'll drag y'all with me, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Partner Betrayal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 02:22:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16567781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostamongstars/pseuds/lostamongstars
Summary: two gifted orphans entwined by a cruel fate are inadvertently united by the ideal of one simple man.[ in which a write a very self-indulgent legend au ]





	1. FIVE YEARS AGO.

**Author's Note:**

> updates are sporadic, based on the hit trilogy by marie lu: legend 
> 
> i'm writing this more as a slow(?) practice into getting back with writing multichapter fics and also bc i really wanted to write skk stuff

Perhaps, by opening a certain door in a sprawling underground complex, Oda Sakunosuke has just opened Yokohama's own Pandora's box.

Oda closed the door and dove into deep darkness. His hands trailed the walls to find a light switch. On his left ear was Ango, still on the communicator. “You don't know what you're doing,” he hisses, the earphone cracking with static. “Get out of that place _now_.”

"I know what I'm doing, Ango. And if I leave right now, I will never be able to live. I'll see you later." Oda clicked his earpiece off.

Dim, white light from a line of blinking fluorescent tubes attached to the steel walls illuminated the vast room. Hundreds of children sprawled on the cold metal floor as if they were discarded dolls. Oda walked in the spaces between each body. He wanted to think they were all sleeping, that they will eventually wake up, play with each other, and go home because this was all a silly sleepover. But there were no pillows, no blankets, no bears for these children to hug. There's blood on their ragged clothes. Some had bruises on their pale skin. Those things told him a different story, a different truth.

These were the children who didn't make it. He made a fist with his hands. The tips of his fingers have gone cold.

Death grabbed Oda by the nose as he looked for something — anything — in this sea of corpses. Lives gone too soon. He figured his own end would come in the next few years, if not months. _If not days, truth be told_ , he thought with a bitter sigh. And he knew that better than anyone else, perhaps a little better than Ango. He'd spent years interrogating the fingerlings of Yokohama's enemies, watched some of his superiors extract information by whip or electric chair. There was no telling how horrible life could end for someone from the inside to know this much, for someone like Oda who has also spent a considerable time writing about the achievements of their government, who's words now carry weight in the eyes of the general public.

A rustle of cloth against the smooth floor.

Oda shuddered, a million emotions rushing inside him, his mind spinning as he scanned the room once more.

Something moved among the bodies at the far corner.

Someone, rather.


	2. 5158

YOKOHAMA DOESN'T KNOW how to call him except 5158. His fingerprints do not match anyone in the whole city. Hell, there's no match for his fingerprints in the entire country. His face keeps changing in every criminal report. They don't even know if he's truly a boy or a girl. All they know is that he is young, and he's a nuisance to the government after he bombed several war jets in the hangar one year ago.

They still don't know how he did that, either.

A fleeting smile graces Nakahara Chuuya's lips as his recent criminal report lights up in one of the gigantic LED screens a few blocks over. There's a little girl with bright blue hair and heterochromatic eyes — emerald and deep blue — under the criminal designation 5158. "She" received a charge of theft after being caught on CCTV stealing provisions off a cargo by the port.

That day, Chuuya had grinned and winked at the camera watching him, hoping it'd be added. Maybe it could qualify as a better profile for his curriculum vitae. The police didn't think so, however. This blatant disregard on his youthful charm convinces Chuuya that everyone in there had some fat sticks up their patriotic asses. Probably suffering through a loveless marriage too.

Three of his recent disguises play out on the giant board after the girl's. He leans on his side against a barred window, lean legs spread wide on the dusty floor. A bald young boy with a hideous scar crossing his left cheek. A student-looking boy with curly brown hair and a gap tooth. Another girl with long, silken black hair dressed in an elegant deep purple cheongsam matching blazing red eyes. The faces differ wildly, the only thing connecting them are the numbers 5158, a reward of two hundred thousand Notes — enough to make any poor citizen feel rich for a week —, and the slew of cases filed against him.

"You just keep getting better and better with the disguises." Ryuunosuke sits from across him, pale hands fiddling with a PVC pipe slingshot. His fair face is at just the perfect position to let him see in the gap between the wooden bars. "I don't think I can even if I tried."

Chuuya follows his gaze, to a certain old house across the silent street. A candle provides a little warm light against the house's lightly barred window. "Nee-san taught me that we have to keep living by any means. This was her way before, and now it's mine."

"Did she teach you that?"

There's a fondness in his heart, memories that coaxes his lips to form a different smile. A distant afternoon of mirrors, powders, soft words, and a hidden chest of clothes... Chuuya will trade anything to go back in those times. Anything. And with a wistful sigh, he says, "I just saw her, once."

They keep watching the house, as silent as the streets below them. Chuuya glances every now and then at the LED boards, and catches a glimpse of Ryuunosuke's missing child poster. The case has aged for a year now, and yet it still hasn't made its grand exit. Both men have made bets on when it'll be gone — Chuuya says never, Ryuunosuke says it'll be gone next year and only because he _will_  break the government with his bare hands.

The boy sitting just a few inches away snorts, knowing when exactly his poster comes up every day and night. "They still haven't given up, have they?"

Chuuya chuckles. "Just like how they never gave up on chasing me. Guess we're special like that, right, cousin?"

"Annoying."

The night is still young, evident from the mesmerizing chaos of lights blooming uptown. But every once in a while in Yokohama, no one dares to walk more than five feet from their front door. And for good reasons.

A new strain of plague has hit them.

Chuuya leans forward, catches sight of tonight's plague patrol team. They seem to have just finished their test on one of the residential homes below. He counts the houses until Kouyou's, makes an estimated time. An hour of waiting. He tries not to grit his teeth, to no avail. A whole fucking hour.

Ryuunosuke coughs. "There she is."

A young woman peeks from the window. Her dark hair takes a sheen shine from the flickering lamplight. Ryuunosuke's sister leans closer to the window, as if to check where the soldiers are at the moment. After a few seconds, another woman with striking light pink hair comes to hold Gin's shoulders. A thick, suffocating feeling eases itself out of Chuuya's chest — Kouyou-nee still looks as elegant as ever, shining even in the dimness of their situation. They watch both women stand still for a few minutes, watching the world outside behind a half-dusty window, then Kouyou says something to Gin and they walk away.

Chuuya sighs, slumping against the cold wall. "Both of them are well enough it seems."

It takes a while before Ryuunosuke says anything. "Gin's cheeks seem a little hollow."

The boy has a sharp eye on details especially those that concern people. But sometimes, like now, it still surprises him. "You really caught that? From this height?"

"This is the only time I badly wish my eyes were playing tricks on me." He hacks another hard cough, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

The cures are never not expensive. If it wasn't, then people wouldn't be dying left and right every two months. Some of his friends from childhood and the ones he's made as 5158 would still be alive. They have a stash of money from all their heinous activities, sure, but against the current greedy face of the medical field? Twenty five thousand Notes won't ever be enough for one vial of plague suppressors.

The soldiers come closer to Kouyou's home as the minutes pass. Somehow they end up playing rock, paper, and scissors, then a light discussion on what should they do after this situation. Chuuya wants to infiltrate another military base for provisions and things to trade in the black market. Ryuunosuke wants to take his sister away a few days before the annual Trials begin, so she wouldn't have to suffer. Both acts have high ratings of danger; they settle on robbing another bank in the next city instead.

Then Ryuunosuke busies himself with a small bundle: a care package they've been putting together over the past weeks. They'll hand it over to Kouyou-nee as soon as the inspections are done, when Gin's already asleep, when she's most likely dreaming of the brother she "lost" roughly two years ago. There's enough food to last the women for half a month, spare Notes to help with anything else they can't provide on hand, and upon Kouyou's suggestion, the things Chuuya used in his disguises. For what reason it was for, Chuuya has no idea and he's learned not to question her much.

Then he pulls up one of the wigs. Almost scarlet in the dark, with a longer lock at the left-hand side. "Your hair?"

"A wig. Nee-san said she would it need it. I wonder what for. She wouldn't tell."

He purses his lips, right hand cupping his chin. "In the first place, there's a—"

"I think I know where you're going with that."

"I haven't even said anything."

"You were going for my height."

"Maybe. Maybe not." Ryuunosuke then squints, scoots closer to the window. His eyes widen for a moment. "They're going in."

It's time.

Chuuya shifts again from his seat and crouches by the window, positioning himself so the shadows of the night still hides his vibrant red hair. The door opens after a soldier knocks. Kouyou appears to welcome them with a light bow of her head. He begins counting the seconds in his head when the soldiers make their way in, single file, in sync with his beating heart, with no doubt that Ryuunosuke's doing the same thing.

He's been through the receiving end of this routine when he was younger: one of the soldiers take a blood sample, runs it through the scanner, and if it lights green, you're safe. The military men gives your family a polite salute, then they leave you alone until the time another plague storms the city out of nowhere.

If one member of the family lights up red, however, they're almost as good as dead. One of the soldiers will mark your door with a huge red X, a sign that everyone must stay away or risk an infection. The infected lives off of rations, suppressors if they can afford it.

 _If_.

The government isn't keen on providing it like cookies when hundreds of the infected are poor while production costs can break six digits. Even if health is a basic human right and shouldn't be commercialized or selective. Either the poor live on to tell the tale, or they die and become just another number in the book. A dull pound at the back of his head rises at the very thought of how little regard there is for the common person. Of how they've only concentrated the effort of giving plague cures for those moneybag scums of the earth. Well, one less mouth to feed in the streets, he guesses. The sarcasm doesn't take away the bitterness filling his mouth.

"You're having that headache again?"

"Sitting here and having a lot of thoughts doesn't help." Chuuya takes another deep breath, swallows the growing ball of unease sitting at the base of his throat. It's been seven minutes and three seconds. Four. Five. His eyebrow twitches, three words leaving his lips unbidden, "I'll be fine."

"Maybe..." Ryuunosuke trails off, eyes closing then opening again. "Maybe we shouldn't have come."

" _You_  almost dragged me and exposed our secret when you heard the plague warning go live in here, Akutagawa."

He turns his face away. "It was my idea, alright. Sorry."

Silence takes them by the throat as they near the ten-minute mark. In this abandoned apartment, sitting against peeling paint and among discarded furniture, the strong scent of sickness and mortality haunts Chuuya once more. _It's not this apartment. A_  heady, antiseptic smell from his most vivid memories sticking on the insides of his nose and lungs like a second skin. _Memories._  Chuuya shakes himself out of it, before his own mind creates another hole for him to sink into. _This isn't the time._

He glances at Ryuunosuke, who's now curled into a ball against the window — arms wrapped around the legs, head pressed into his ragged pants, his face hidden by his pitch black hair. After he decided to just go alone without telling Chuuya and the fight that led to them spying on their only family in this dismal place... _He carries several fears. Perhaps more so than I do._  Chuuya only need to worry about their health — Ryuunosuke has all the right to worry about Gin's life.

She's already ten, and in a few weeks, The Trial will come for her like it did for the rest of them.

The internal timer in Chuuya's head ticks ten minutes. The soldiers should be going out now. "Tonight's a struggle but it's still worth it," he begins, as if he's giving a victory speech. His chest still hurts from the wait. "You wanted to know how Gin's doing in school now. I wanted to hand over the bundle to Nee-san. If they pass, we all win."

"If."

That cursed word hangs itself in the air as both of them await the promised exit of the patrol.

One minute.

Two.

_Three._

"Something tells me the plague patrol won't be there for more than ten minutes if nothing's wrong," Akutagawa whispers.

And they wait. What other option is there? They can't just march in anyway — Chuuya's the most wanted in Yokohama and Ryuunosuke's just as sought after, just in a different way. The latter's fate may not be as grave as Chuuya's, but it won't be pretty and light either.

Thirty minutes.

Forty.

_One hour._

"Fuck," Chuuya only meant to mouth it but in the silence, it's the loudest sound he hears.  "What the fuck is going on?"

The door swings inward. Chuuya can swear he hears the lightest yet sharpest inhale coming from Ryuunosuke. Or perhaps it's his — the distinction is no longer there as they watch tbe soldiers march out in a file, their postures stiff, face cast downward.

His heart almost stops when the last soldier turns back to the door, and takes out a little can from one of his belt pockets.

The soldier marks their door with a red X.

"Shit," Ryuunosuke whispers through gritted teeth.

Then, the soldier draws another line, cutting the X in half.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and iiiii finally finish ONE chapter [wipes sweat] i wanted to go for the alternating POVs but im not that sure if i can pull off dazai's part well enough. I guess we'll just have to see if my muse cooperates with me. 
> 
> as always, let me know what you think! and feel free to gush about bsd with me on Twitter: @/DEAREST22194
> 
> hope you guys have enjoyed this fic 🖤


	3. THREE WORDS

“How fast did you climb those fourteen stories?”

 

“Oda," Ango calls, resigned as always. "You're just spoiling him again.”

 

“In under six minutes.” Dazai grins. “Not bad, huh, Odasaku?”

 

“You had that semiautomatic strapped to your back earlier, and nothing to protect yourself if in case you fall the wrong way — which could've happened according to eyewitnesses. You really have a death wish,” the man says, his eyes on the road as he drives them through the town. Ango sighs in the backseat, knowing that this is how this kind of talk always ends.

 

Oda makes a turn when the traffic light goes green. “Is the university not keeping you busy?”

 

He twirls his fingers on one of his long, dark locks, gazing at the sidewalk with a carefree smile. A bystander — a girl, obviously — squeals in delight. “You know what I want.”

 

“Not that discussion again, Dazai. Graduate first and then wait for you to get assigned. Perhaps Commander Mori will take you. He'd appreciate someone as—”

 

He perks from his seat with a childlike expression of confusion. “I wasn't talking about that.”

 

“He definitely wasn't talking about that.”

 

Dazai smiles at the rearview mirror, knowing just the right angle so Ango sees it. “Yay for Ango who understands me.” 

 

Ango purses his lips for a moment. “I don't exactly tolerate your publicized suicide attempts and then use the military to cover it up as improving your skills for the war effort.”

 

“But it still counts as training, doesn't it?" He stretches his arms like a languid cat. "Our scaling walls aren't high enough to present any challenges. And nearly every building erected at the war zones are as tall as the ones we have here.”

 

"It's refreshing to hear that you are looking after your physical assets this time."

 

"Only because a certain Ango Sakaguchi told me I move like a soggy noodle when they came to supervise our practice." Dazai wiggles his eyebrows. "I'm just doing what he recommended back then."

 

Oda raises an eyebrow. "Ah, so you indirectly instigated this, Ango."

 

Ango snorts. “Nice try shifting the blame on me, Dazai." Dazai chuckles through the rest of his words. "But I would appreciate it if you can just stick to your classes better. You only have a year or so left before graduation. How will you join us if you keep collecting suspension passes nearly, what, every month? Didn't you want to graduate as early as possible too?”

 

Oda adds, "I doubt Professor Hirotsu would love to see you again in his office for some other reason. For any other reason.” Then, quietly, “You don't have to catch up with your brilliant mind, sure, but...”

 

“Okay, okay.” He raises his hand, ceding. “I will try to keep my schedule straight next week.”

 

“You've been saying that since last year, though.” Ango points out. “So perhaps that is the only thing you're consistent at.”

 

They all share a laugh as they drive past the slum sectors, and reach the high-rises where their home is. Perhaps being the sole perfect child of Yokohama, the greatest soldier the military can groom as of the moment, gives Dazai a pass for a lot of things. For as much as he's inconvenienced the faculty with his antics, he has given a lot of things that the military greatly benefits from. 

 

Underhanded yet effective tactics. Analyses of enemy weapons and how they can use it to make their own, revised torture methods that guarantees valuable information. Even the new process of infiltration, enemy suppression, battle formations and strategies came from his own research papers one year ago, and it's all paying off in the battlefield in scales the brass never thought they'd see in their lifetimes.

 

To cut the long story short, Osamu Dazai is the reason why after several decades, Yokohama is finally spitting fire again.

 

There are some... nuisances like The Rats and 5158 but those can wait. 

 

They reach their apartment complex. Dazai gets off first and stretches again, surprised that Ango only got off the backseat to join Oda by riding shotgun. “Ah, you're going back?”

 

“We have patrols to make,” says Oda. “And we'll be monitoring the hospital for a new shipment for plague cures. Don't go off on your own and the power grid will be shut down tonight.”

 

“No tricks, I swear.” This time, Dazai means it. He might've had plans later, though, like visiting one of the bars downtown. He rarely ever lies to him but, you see, Oda doesn't have to know his side activities.

 

“I'll hold you up to that.” The man starts the engines again. “See you later.”

 

Ango waves. “See you later, Dazai.”

 

He waves back until the jeep has gone too far away to be seen. A hollow space in his chest devours his pacified thoughts, and he decides to distract himself again once he comes in.

 

Oda Sakunosuke rarely comes home.

 

The man assures him several times over that he'll be back as soon as he can, and it always happens when the plague rolls its uninvited self upon the streets. But Dazai can never shake off the churning of his gut whenever Oda implies that he might not make it to dinner. 

 

Inside, the minutes tick by too slowly. Even when he begins reading the man's personal journals to get through the afternoon awake. He's read each journal many times that he skips most content to look at two pictures. 

 

His simple 10th birthday party with Oda's five adopted children.  Everyone but Dazai fought for the littlest of things like candy and who gets to watch their favorite TV channel (finish your homework first, Oda would remind them). Dazai was stoic and distant at most, but in that picture  they grinned like they've known each other since they were born.

 

Back then, it was all that mattered.

 

Exactly five months from that was a monochrome shot of Oda in white clothes, armed with a thousand-yard stare as he stood in front of five headstones beneath a clear summer sky. All of Dazai's foster siblings died in a car accident while on their way to fetch Dazai from his first day in his new school.

 

Oda was the only one who got out alive.

 

“You're too smart for your own good,” he told him when he asked if he ever thought that possibility of it as not an accident. “I just know you'll figure it out.”

 

“Figure what out?”

 

Odasaku gave him a thin, forlorn smile, but never said anything.

 

Dazai wanted him to say something back then. Anything. They stood beneath the mocking sky, unmoving until their guests got tired of standing with them, the moon replaced the sun, and the overcast night sky shed its tears with them.

 

Odasaku wasn't the only one who lost a family that day.

 

Dazai too.

 

"Odasaku," he whispers in the empty apartment, closing the journal in his hand and then his eyes, "you misspelled another word again."

 

His mind wanders. What all those mistakes in the journal mean. Why, when he rearranges every letter, it points to one of the drafts of his upcoming book which he's only mentioned once and never showed him where it is. He can't find that physically... or digitally either. Yet. Dazai knows if there's anything that Odasaku must keep, it should be something the three of them can access together. A system or a hack they've come up with. Dazai knows Odasaku's tricks like the back of his hand, he's even shared some that even Ango doesn't know, and yet...

 

Unless...

 

His mind drifts into sleep.

 

An outsider...

 

A loud series of knocks on his door startles him awake.

 

Dazai snaps out of his sleep, his head only slightly spinning as he makes his way to the door. The apartment basks in the orange glow of an emergency lamp that lights up every time a power shutdown occurs. His bare feet meet the cold floor, sending chills up his spine. The shutdown just happened a few minutes ago. Out of the corner of his eyes he spots that it's already night outside. There, the streetlights are the only thing that's on. "Coming."

 

Ango stands in front of his door, still in the same uniform as earlier, a streak of black grease present on his forehead. 

 

He's not smiling.

 

The young prodigy clenches his fist. His fingers grow strangely colder in every second that passes, digging deeper into his palms until it hurt.

 

"Dazai," Ango says, breaths heavy, eyes refusing to make contact with his. "I'm sorry."

 

_No._

 

"Oda is dead."


End file.
